A Gardening Program to Assess Unhealthy Lifestyle Contributions to Summer Weight Gain in Children

October 1, 2015 updated by: University of Wisconsin, Madison

Use of Biomarkers to Assess Unhealthy Lifestyle Contributions to Summer Weight Gain in Children

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of a summer gardening program on summer weight gain in overweight middle school children.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

In the past two decades, the combination of unhealthy eating and physical inactivity has contributed to doubling the percentage of children and adolescents who are overweight. Childhood overweight is known to lead to increased risk for several morbidities in childhood and into adulthood including type 2 diabetes mellitus, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease. Recent data shows that children experience greater and more variable increases in BMI during summer vacation than during the school year. Our project aims to determine whether summer weight gain is due to a decrease in physical activity or an increase in daily calories as well as to assess the effectiveness of a summer gardening program on preventing summer body fat gain. We will randomize 40 middle-school children who are above the 95th percentile for BMI into either a control or intervention group. The control group will receive the standard of care and the intervention group will participate in Garden Fit, a summer gardening project at Troy Gardens in Madison, WI. As part of Garden Fit, subjects will participate in weeding, landscaping and trail maintenance activities as well as preparing meals twice a week with fresh foods from the gardens. We hypothesize that summer weight gain is due to a worsening of healthy lifestyle (decreased physical activity from school to summer and increased eating of high calorie snacks). Additionally, we hypothesize that an intervention that increases physical activity and provides increased access to healthy foods will reduce the trend of summer BMI increase.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

12

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • United States
    • Wisconsin
      • Madison, Wisconsin, United States, 53706
        • University of Wisconsin

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

10 years to 14 years (Child)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Middle school child aged 10-14 years
  • BMI at or above the 85th percentile for height and weight
  • Able to attend 8-week summer program and clinic visits

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Any known metabolic disorder
  • Any physical disability that prevents or limits physical activity
  • Claustrophobia

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Prevention
  • Allocation: Non-Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Gardening Program
Other: Garden Fit
8-week summer gardening program. 9am-12pm on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and 9am-12:30pm on Tuesday and Thursday. Activities included gardening (preparing soil for planting, planting seeds and seedlings, mulching, weeding, watering, and harvesting), preparing meals with fresh foods from the garden, and other garden activities and games.
Other Names:
  • Garden Fit 2009
No Intervention: Control
Subjects received the standard of care for the summer.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Time Frame
BMI
Time Frame: June 2009 and August 2009
June 2009 and August 2009

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Time Frame
Fitness (as measured by VO2 Submax testing)
Time Frame: June 2009 and August 2009
June 2009 and August 2009
Resting Metabolic Rate
Time Frame: June 2009 and August 2009
June 2009 and August 2009
Fasting insulin
Time Frame: June 2009 and August 2009
June 2009 and August 2009
Fasting glucose
Time Frame: June 2009 and August 2009
June 2009 and August 2009
CRP
Time Frame: June 2009 and August 2009
June 2009 and August 2009
IL-6
Time Frame: June 2009 and August 2009
June 2009 and August 2009
Body Composition
Time Frame: June 2009 and August 2009
June 2009 and August 2009
Plasma Carotenoids
Time Frame: June 2009 and August 2009
June 2009 and August 2009
Total Energy Expenditure
Time Frame: June 2009 and August 2009
June 2009 and August 2009
Food Consumption (measured by FFQs)
Time Frame: June 2009 and August 2009
June 2009 and August 2009

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

University of Wisconsin, Madison

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Dale Schoeller, Ph.D., University of Wisconsin, Department of Nutritional Sciences

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start

May 1, 2009

Primary Completion (Actual)

August 1, 2009

Study Completion (Actual)

August 1, 2009

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

September 9, 2009

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

September 9, 2009

First Posted (Estimate)

September 10, 2009

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Estimate)

October 5, 2015

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

October 1, 2015

Last Verified

September 1, 2009

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • MSN106189

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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